New director leads Library school into
Information Age

The Information School of the University of Washington.
A distinguished school with a core faculty of 27 and another dozen
affiliate faculty, serving a population of nearly 1,000 undergraduate and
graduate students. Widely regarded as the best information school in the
country.

A pipe dream? No, this in essence is Mike Eisenberg’s
10-year plan for what is now known as the Graduate School of Library and
Information Sciences (GSLIS). Eisenberg, who recently became the
school’s director, was selected after a nationwide search and was the
unanimous choice of the search committee, chaired by Elizabeth Feetham,
associate dean of the Graduate School, and the school’s faculty.

“I’m a builder,” says Eisenberg, who was lured
here from a senior faculty position at Syracuse University by the prospect
“of being part of something big.”

“This school is one of the best kept secrets on
campus. It has a solid tradition in the library community and throughout
the Northwest upon which we’re going to build. It has a strong faculty
and excellent students.

“But what we’re going to do is more than just a
gentle evolution. Much as the Information Age has been called an
explosion, it is also an apt metaphor for the transformation that this
school will be undergoing, as it more accurately and completely responds
to society’s information needs.”

Eisenberg emphasizes that this will be a school of
the university and not merely at the university. “I want to bring
together many of the best things that are going on at the UW, as well as
introducing some new things. Information science is a discipline that
studies the organization, management, processing and use of information by
people in every possible environment. We also plan to take advantage of
the leading role that Northwest companies are playing in this
transformation. Our students will be trained to make important
contributions to society. And our discipline also will be working closely
with other campus departments. I believe there is a void in information
technology—the ability to apply technology to various fields, as it can
be done by an information professional.”

Eisenberg plans to take the school down many paths at
the same time. “I’m not a linear person, but more of a parallel
processor,” he says. The school will be undertaking a revision of its
core master’s degree curriculum (“we’ll be upping the technological
infrastracture”), while at the same time it will begin moving toward
both a bachelor’s degree (probably beginning with service courses to
undergraduates) and a doctoral program. Eisenberg also doesn’t want to
overlook distance education as an option for many potential students. “I
know distance education has been somewhat controversial in this state. I
have experience and background in distance learning; I think it encourages
us to think about education in different ways. In the future, our school
should see itself as a school for the entire Northwest, and as a national
center for education.”

Having a bachelor’s degree program by 2001 is one of
Eisenberg’s goals. “Just as biologists offer a system through which to
view knowledge, and chemists offer a system from their point of view,
information technology offers its own view, its own system.
Undergraduates, whether they major in information technology or another
field, will benefit from a deeper understanding of how information can be
organized, processed, synthesized and analyzed.

“The UW has already done some of these things through
the offerings of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
through Computing and Communications, and the Libraries. What our school
can bring to this is the perspective of the user of information—which is
a real strength of the faculty here.”

Eisenberg sees links being created in two
directions—with academic departments on the one hand, and with what he
calls the “clinical side,” with Computing and Communications and
University Libraries, on the other. “We’re in a service field,
training professionals, but we also are an academic discipline. We need to
stay in touch with the professionals, and we also need to further research
in our discipline.”

Eisenberg characterized the Ph.D. program as “the
other missing link” in developing an excellent school. “It’s hard to
attract faculty and to do great research without having doctoral students
as colleagues.” One of Eisenberg’s first moves was to offer a faculty
position to an outstanding scholar from Australia, Harry Bruce, whose
mission is to help transform the school and lay the groundwork for a
doctoral program.

The time appears right for a dramatic change in the
school. A 1996 “Futures Committee,” chaired by Betty Bengtson,
director of University Libraries, found that the school was uniquely
positioned “to build a new and outstanding library and information
science program that will rapidly achieve national and international
prominence and will have enormous impact across the campus and throughout
the region.” The report calls for a reformulated school with a broader,
more interdisciplinary focus on information.

Moreover, seven faculty positions in the school are
open, and the school has recently received a University Initiatives Fund
award from the Provost’s Office, which will aid in the school’s
transformation. (As intended from the original design of the UIF, some of
the available funds were not allocated as part of the competitive proposal
process. The intention was to enable the Provost to spot initiatives that
emerged outside the UIF cycle and consider funding those that are well
suited to the goals of the UIF program. With the concurrence of President
McCormick, Provost Huntsman has decided to use the balance of UIF funds to
support the transformation of Graduate School of Library and Information
Sciences.) (See related
story.)

Eisenberg was a full professor at Syracuse and also
director of the Syracuse Information Institute, a research and service
organization with a staff of 35 and over $2 million a year in sponsored
research. “I wasn’t looking to leave Syracuse. I was happy there.”
What drew him to the UW, he says, “was the enthusiasm of every single
person I met here—on the search committee, among the school’s faculty,
in the Graduate School, in the provost and the president. They all talked
to me about the desire for collaboration across disciplines. Then I talked
to faculty and found that it was really happening.”

While some information schools are dropping their
connection with traditional libraries, Eisenberg finds this approach
short-sighted. “There are new libraries going up all over, in major
cities and now on the Internet, and we need to keep those connections. But
we will also help the profession transform itself. You don’t need to be
a librarian to be an information professional, however librarians are the
original information professionals. Librarians are key players in our
global information society. The future of schools like ours is in being
broad-based, in building connections with other schools and developing
strong collaborative relationships.”

Students will have an important role to play in this new
structure, which in Eisenberg’s view positions them more as partners
than simply as clients. “For example, we need to build up our
internships and placements. A traditional way to do this would be to hire
a director to perform this function. But my model is to incorporate
students into a unit that keeps track of internship opportunities and
needs—have the students develop and maintain a database. Then the staff
position will become one of coordinator, with students integrated into
that unit’s operation. The same should also be true of research.
Students should be involved in the field, helping to identify and shape
research problems.”

Eisenberg’s interests and ambitions go beyond research
and education and into policy. “There are lots of provocative questions
about information policy, about balancing the desire that we have to
customize the information that we seek and receive, versus legitimate
privacy concerns. Given the local corporate community, this subject should
be of great interest. And we can help organize discussions of these
issues, in cooperation with other schools and departments.”

One issue Eisenberg already has addressed is the
school’s physical location. While its facilities are now hidden in the
recesses of Suzzallo Library, they will be moved to the third floor of
Mary Gates Hall once construction there is completed.

It’s a good location from which to achieve one of
Eisenberg’s other goals: “To become the information school that
transforms the way people think about information and society.” ¶